Last December, Mission to Seafarers (MTS) held their annual Christmas initiative to provide care packs to the crews of the vessels frequenting Newcastle over the Christmas period. These men and women are often the forgotten link in worldwide supply chains and spend lengthy periods away from their family and home.
With COVID restricting the crews from coming ashore, even the basics can be hard to get. In conjunction with MTS, the NCIG HSEC team assisted with procuring items to provide in the Christmas care packs, which were packed by MTS staff and volunteers. The NCIG Live Run team then co-ordinated with shift crews to ensure that there were enough packs for each vessel, distributing to the crews upon vessel sign up.
The care packs contained everyday essential items and some luxuries such as DVD’s, magazines, toiletries, socks, beanies, biscuits, sweets, CD’s, puzzles and games. Depending on the crew size, up to 18 care packs were delivered to each vessel. The care packs were very well received, and the crew members were very appreciative of the good will shown by MTS and NCIG.
This is a very worthy cause and hopefully once the pandemic threat subsides, we can all get involved again donating items to crew members that keep our coal moving.
